


Third Time's the Charm

by storybycorey



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storybycorey/pseuds/storybycorey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble written from the prompt "Things you said in a hotel room".  Shared bed ficlet!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third Time's the Charm

It’s happened twice before. 

Once because a warm, sleepy Scully was a much more appealing bedfellow than a cold, flattened (and more than slightly bloodied) cow. But that was only for a couple hours, and they were far more concerned with another potential livestock mishap than whether the other really smelled that damn good in the middle of the night only a few inches away in a queen-sized bed. 

And, by the way, yes, the other really did smell that good.

Next, because a hotel in Destin, Florida fucked up the reservations, even despite Scully’s slightly drawling voice and coyly tilted head and barely fluttering eyelashes. Even despite that. Mulder couldn’t deny being impressed with the kid-behind-the-counter’s resolve when confronted with that persuasive onslaught. But no, two twin beds it was. Which worked out alright, since they were a little pissed at each other that night anyway.

But that’s not to say he didn’t still allow his eyes to roam, over the curves of her body in the dim light from the glow outside their window, as she lay on her side with only a chasm the width of a nightstand between them.

And she may have still listened to him murmur, drunkenly in his sleep, while imagining (even hoping) that the murmurs were somehow connected to her and his hands on her lonely body.

And now tonight. It’s happened again tonight. For the third time.

There’s a furniture convention in town, of all things. He wonders whether anyone attending happens to be carrying an extra bed in their briefcase. 

Because this time, in this room, there’s only one bed, and it may not even be a queen-size. It may just be a full. Unfortunately, he’s forgotten his tape measure, or he’d check. Just to be accurate. 

Their “oh’s” are simultaneous as they stand in the doorway. He almost calls “jinx”, but he likes the sound of her voice too much to demand her silence for long. Of course, making her wait until he spills her name three times holds some appeal as well, but by the time he’s thought of it, she’s already standing before the bed, arms crossed and tongue sliding contemplatively along her lips.

They’re not even the slightest bit pissed at each other tonight either. They are, in fact, quite friendly if anything. She laughed at his jokes three times today and smiled appreciatively another two. He’s only somewhat embarrassed to have been counting. 

And it didn’t escape her notice that he ordered extra french fries with his lunch, knowing she’d skipped breakfast and would be looking to swipe even more than usual.

No, they’re quite friendly indeed tonight.

Friendly enough that the prospect of sharing a queen-sized (full?) bed brings them both pause, triggering heartbeats to quicken and flushes to arise over skin that’s been untouched for far too long.

“Umm, well…,” she ponders, “this will be fun.” He tries to decipher what kind of fun she means, while she tries to decipher whether he’s wearing boxers or briefs, and whether he’ll be wearing either of them to bed tonight. With her.

“Which side…?” he asks, hoping that perhaps she has forgotten her reliable satin pajamas and will need one of his T-shirts instead, even though she’s never been without her satin pajamas even once in the thousands of miles they’ve traveled together. 

“I’ve always pictured you on the right,” she says. It escapes her lips before she has the time to catch it, before she has time to realize just what she’s done, what Pandora’s box she’s just unlocked. Oh shit.

“Pictured?” he questions with a smirk. He can see her brain backpeddling, furiously searching for a reasonable, rational explanation for its little slip, while he secretly revels in the fact that he, too, has always pictured himself on the right.

“Just…just in the most general sense of picturing, Mulder,” she mutters, cheeks pink as she leans down to fumble with her suitcase, as she tries her damnedest not to picture him even further, sliding his way over until he is no longer on the right, but on the left, hovering above her in a churning mass of flesh and heat.

“No, you’ve pictured it, pictured US. Admit it, Scully.” Damn him, she thinks, for being so cocky, but also for knowing her too well for either of their own goods. She realizes she’s forgotten her satin pajamas. She’s *never* forgotten her satin pajamas. And when did he get so close? He’s damn near standing on top of her at this point.

“Why don’t YOU admit it? Since you’re so fond of accusations right now.” She hopes he doesn’t recognize her attempt at reverse psychology—even though technically this isn’t reverse psychology—but she hopes he doesn’t recognize it all the same. She also hopes that her somewhat ragged breathing and barely trembling fingers aren’t too embarrassingly obvious in the low lamplight of the room.

“Okay,” his voice has unexpectedly lost its tease and is suddenly as soft as she’s ever imagined it could be, when she’s allowed herself to imagine such things. Intimate. Her eyes find the paisley of the polyester bedspread and her fingers trace the swirls. “I admit it. I’ve pictured it. I imagine myself on the right, too.” 

“You do?” she murmurs, eyes still downcast, although the paisley before them has lost all its form. All she sees now is a kaleidoscope of purple and blue and gold, swimming before her eyes. 

“You sleep on your left side, at least mostly anyway…. And… I’d be able to see your face.” Her heart jolts lightly within her chest, even though she probably shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve arrived at the very same place for the very same reason, once again. Their relationship is built from bricks of the two of them finding common ground. “It’s a little hard to kiss the back of someone’s head, you know….”

His breath is hot where it brushes her ear, and it moistens her temple just slightly. She should be ashamed at the way her nipples harden, but she’s not—she’s too busy imagining him kissing the front of her head instead of the back. 

“That’s true,” she assents, “Kissing makes much more sense face-to-face, doesn’t it?” His fingers burrow their way beneath her collar and slide along her nape. She closes her eyes and shudders. Twice they’ve slept in the same room, she reminds herself, and nothing even remotely close to this ever transpired then.

Perhaps the third time’s the charm.

“Because hair would get in the wa—,” the rest of her words are swallowed by his hot, hungry mouth, as he curves his hand into her hair (so it most definitely won’t get in the way) and pulls her so much closer to him than the width of a nightstand. He pulls her closer to him than even the width of one of the french fries she’d pilfered from his plate at lunch.

When they finally break away to catch a gulping breath, she gasps against his lips, “I forgot my pajamas.”

“That’s okay,” he grins as he nibbles her swollen lip, “I’ve got a T-shirt you can borrow.” 

He presses her into the mattress and she doesn’t even consider examining the paisley again, even when it stares her right in the face— his lips between her slickened shoulder blades and his fingers cupping her naked breast— a half an hour later.

They are only slightly surprised to find that he really doesn’t sleep on the right side after all, nor does she sleep on the left. 

Instead they sleep tangled together in the middle.


End file.
